#✦ if you don't like the script... walk off the stage. || kaeya alberich

[mercyburned]

while i'm working on drafts in the background (gonna queue them so i don't get overwhelmed), i'm thinking about

thoma and how deeply he buries every single negative emotion in order to be the thoma everyone expects to see

yes he has a positive attitude and no things like the two assholes from his hangout aren't going to hurt his feelings but yes he is also a human being and he feels things like regret for leaving his mother and his friends and then guilt for feeling that regret because of what the kamisatos have given him and it's a never-ending cycle

let's not forget he was literally part of an underground rebellion to overthrow the government which was lead not by a mortal human but an actual god, and an incredibly powerful one at that

let's not forget that he threw a spear at said god without a second thought

thoma's kindness and good heart / warmth are not at all false, not in the slightest. but there is a reason why no one wants to fuck with him and it's because he's got a ruthless streak. but where kaeya basically wears a sign on his forehead that says "i'm a lil shady lmao ;)" thoma keeps it well under wraps.

not out of an attempt to be dishonest but just... see point #1

it's a gigantic dichotomy co-existing inside of one single person and he can't toss out one side to grow the other because the dichotomy itself is what makes him who he is

also thinking about

how the fact that kaeya was born in khaenri'ah and lived there 500 years ago probably lead to a vast majority of his childhood illnesses in mondstadt. correct me if this is the wrong term, but assuming pathogen/germ evolution is still a thing, the common cold in mondstadt is probably a very different version of the common cold in khaenri'ah. kaeya's immune system was not at all prepared for what illness looked like 500 years on. he got lucky in that he survived to become a healthy adult, but it got pretty rough a few times

a fatui au where pierro took him to fontaine instead of mondstadt and he was raised in the HoH (please)

[mercyburned]

NO SHUT THE FUCK UP I JUST REALIZED I ANSWERED ONE OF MY OWN HEADCANONS WITH ANOTHER ONE --

i think it was @gunnhildred who i told a while ago that i felt kaeya's mother was from the desert specifically, NOT the rainforest, and she was probably an eremite or the then-equivalent of the eremites who eventually settled in khaenri'ah.

i've been saying pretty much since i started writing him that the curse is localized in kaeya's eye but it's dormant. it's never gone away but it's never gotten worse, either. and until canon proves me wrong, that's my theory.

from 4.5 we learned that the curse doesn't take effect if your god died -- only if you betrayed your god by forsaking them.

if zahara came from the desert, it's possible she followed either king deshret or the goddess of flowers. both of whom died. she didn't stop becoming a follower because she woke up one day and decided "this isn't for me."

her god/goddess died.

and after that, she chose to start a new life in khaenri'ah, where she met pierro, got married, and had kaeya.

which, depending on pierro... would help explain why he's not only mortal and ages normally, but not affected at all by the curse. it's there, sure. at least one of his parents or grandparents or even great-grandparents betrayed a god at some point. but one side of his family didn't. zahara's god died.

i might be wrong here but i actually really like this idea for my kaeya lmao --

i also think this means it's possible that there are other khaenri'ahn descendants out there, from other survivors like himself. granted, kaeya ... had a very unique set of circumstances that led to him being a mortal some 500 years after the cataclysm. even if he had originally survived, he should probably have grown old and died by now, but he didn't.

( no what do you mean, this is absolutely not another thing that makes kaeya feel a bit out of step beside the people around him -- )

anyway, uhhhh, yeah. to his understanding the curse could reactivate at any moment and it's a nightmare scenario that keeps him awake more often than not ( and maybe even makes him a little paranoid sometimes ), but !! the truth might be ... not as terrible. he might have gotten away with this life by the skin of his teeth.

of course, that's not something he could ever easily confirm... at least, not until he gets through the doors to khaenri'ah itself. :')

[mercyburned]

k.aeya headcanons you can pry from my cold dead hands

he is an accomplished pianist, or rather he was at one point. he can still play well enough by muscle memory, but he hasn't consistently played the piano since c.repus' death.

as a child he used to chase the crystalflies around dawn winery. d.iluc had to catch some for him though.

his mother wanted more children. he would have been a big brother if the cataclysm had never happened.

he will die before he admits it out loud but he misses his brother and being a little brother. there's so much he wants to share about his life and the way it's changing but he feels uncomfortable asking d.iluc to listen. he's not sure he would still listen. so he says nothing.

the stray animals around m.ondstadt love him. officially, he has no pets. unofficially, he always leaves food and water out for the cats and dogs around town. if he's eating lunch outside he sneaks the dogs some of his food. there are at least three cats who sneak in through his open window and sleep in bed with him most nights.

he says he's not much of a snacker but if you put a veggie tray in front of him it will be gone before you can blink.

he takes after his mother very much in his appearance and build. they're both tall and strong but slender.

once as a child he was snacking on some jueyun chilis like they were candy, much to everyone else's horror, even though he insisted they weren't really that hot.

also as a child he thought he'd hate m.ondstadt's food because it wasn't spiced and seasoned the same way he was used to, but as he got older he appreciates it being comfort food. he still likes s.umeru-style seasoned dishes though.

he can actually cook very well. many of his dishes take inspiration from s.umeru and the few things he remembers about his early childhood in kh.aenri'ah. he likes to keep this talent a secret though. jean is one of the only people who has tasted his cooking.

like many of my characters, he is allergic to cherries. if i have to suffer this allergy, so do my muses.

[mercyburned]

okay so i only made the g.enshin/s.tar rail ship tier list for k.aeya since he's the most-requested muse these days lmao, i stared at this for a while trying to see where else i could add other muses but honestly could not come up with anything. if a character is not on the tier list somewhere, i either (a) genuinely do not see their paths crossing, or (b) i guess it's not impossible for them to meet but i just don't see anything happening beyond acquaintanceship

[mercyburned]

The fact that Kaeya is always seen in art with the girls tells me that he’s someone who women can feel safe and comfortable around. Yes, he might notice if someone is specifically easy on the eyes… but no, he’s not going to make any unwanted advances and he doesn’t befriend women with the intention of getting in bed with them. He really is happy to just be friends with someone who’s interesting to him. If he sees bad behavior, he calls it out and puts a stop to it (as we saw in the summer event even if the context was different). Anyway point in short, Kaeya is someone safe to be around, he’s comfortable to talk to, he will clean things up without being asked to do it first, and he generally takes the initiative to make sure everything is in order so that by the time anyone else realizes it was ever out of order, he’s already fixed it. He’s peak husband material if you can get past the ancient legacy and brick wall of trauma defenses.

I personally hc for my Kaeya that he’s more comfortable around women than men as well, and finds those relationships easier to develop and maintain. Which is why his romantic relationships tend to also be mostly with women — like, yes, he does think someone he’s just met can be physically attractive, but there really has to be a deep level of trust and respect for anything more than friendship to happen.

Anyway that’s my ramble for the night. I’m exhausted but I’ll try to write actual things this weekend.

[mercyburned]

𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐆𝐄 .

an undoing influence

Can someone tell you what to do? You have been carrying so much love within you for so long it is starting to turn into anger (why does it matter, all you see is red anyways) and you have been dragging this body through each day and every night you are split open on your bed and it is so so so lonely. If someone were to walk in while you were on your bed that way and they stitched you back in a new way, lining the seams with their love and kisses, you’d probably find this dreary world a little more bearable. You want someone to turn you over and over until you look in the mirror and see yourself looking back at yourself with a gentleness which has been lacking in you since forever.

tagged by: @myjustice ( thank u ! ) tagging: you, reading this! ( also @svnsworn for felix and kaveh and @maquiscursed for rosaria )

[mercyburned]

i know i have other muses but kaeya is absolutely taking over with a kind of primordial rage over wondering how many ruins of civilizations are spread across teyvat from places like khaenri'ah. how many tens of thousands of people had to die because celestia said so. how is he supposed to keep silent about it. why is he the only one who still cares.

[mercyburned]

thinking about how the 'raw honesty' part of kaeya's relationship with @apocryphis's rosaria really came out (1) because she backed him into a corner he could not escape from and (2) his self-destructiveness came out and said 'well fuck it, she's gonna hate me after this anyway, might as well tell the truth and have the fight with diluc over again!!' and then instead of things falling apart, their relationship got stronger and kaeya just shortcircuited like '...wat' and now he kind of just goes with whatever rosaria says.

[mercyburned]

thinking about how rapidly kaeya acquired the common language of teyvat and how astonishingly brilliant he is with languages and how he keeps an incredibly private journal where he only writes in khaenri'ahn as much as possible because he's actually so afraid of losing his first language. it's the single last connection he has to his place of birth and his childhood and the place where his mother died. there is no one he can talk to about that let alone have a conversation with in khaenri'ahn and it's always in the back of his mind and it contributes so much to him feeling very alienated from everyone around him, even though he has very strong relationships in mondstadt.

tl;dr no one alive will ever see the journal but him, but i really want him to interact with someone else who speaks khaenri'ahn so he can latch on to them like a six-foot-tall language leech.

( what do you mean, no of course he doesn't struggle with the fact that he basically stopped learning his first language as soon as he got dropped in mondstadt and of course it doesn't bother him that he can express himself more, and more eloquently, in common than he can in the language he used with his mother -- )

also coming soon: a post on how he grieves his parents differently and how no matter how much he's absolutely his father's son, his relationship with his mother is so much more fundamental to what makes kaeya, kaeya.

[mercyburned]

realizing that Fatui Kaeya never develops a dependency on alcohol since he was raised by Arlecchino / still kept some contact with Pierro / had a consistent family with Lyney and the others / never suffered the loss of a parental figure or family / never felt as alienated from the people around him by virtue of being Khaenri’ahn.

He still drinks and enjoys drinking but it’s much, much more social and since he was never cut off completely from his heritage / people who know the truth / etc, he doesn’t become as depressed either. I think he’s still got a tendency towards melancholy at times, but it is not as severe as it is in Mondstadt.

[mercyburned]

does Kaeya leave Diluc any sort of gift for his birthday, or does he quietly wish his brother well?

Yes.

Depending on the status of their reconciliation, it’s more likely that Kaeya would either make a quick visit to the winery when he knows Diluc isn’t there - and won’t be for at least an hour - and leave a small gift. I think in most cases he believes it’s better to just keep a healthy bit of distance and not engage directly. Yes, that actually makes him quite lonely, but it is what it is. He misses having a close bond with someone who was family, but he also doesn’t feel completely comfortable trying to restart it. So he doesn’t. But he never forgets Diluc’s birthday and toasts to him in the privacy of his dormitory more often than not.

[mercyburned]

thinking about how few people have ever seen Kaeya actually get angry. in recent years the only ones who would have seen it were those present at bottleland when he lost his patience with those brothers for making Klee (and lowkey himself) upset. It’s so rare for Kaeya to get visibly angry that it’s very impactful when he actually lets it show.

[mercyburned]

no thoughts head empty only kaeya and his extremely complicated relationship with khaenri'ah and how he both craves even the most meager form of connection to it but also wants to keep everything to do with it away from mondstadt because he knows that nothing to do with khaenri'ah is going to be safe for the people there but at the same time when he goes abroad and people ask where he's from, there's only one place he wants to answer with and that's the one place he absolutely CANNOT name.

[mercyburned]

Rethinking my ship tier for Kaeya yet again because in verses where he’s single, while he may feel initial attraction to people who are more sun than moon, so to speak, I think he’d have trouble forming a deeper connection, at least at first.

Not that I think it’s impossible or would never happen - I just think he’d find himself in a position with someone who has such a different perspective on life and who is more “glass half full, staying positive is the key” than “fill the glass up and keep drowning your sorrows because self-destruction is the only coping mechanism you understand.”

And he wouldn’t easily feel comfortable expressing that without a LOT of work/effort put into trust and understanding, much more than is necessary compared to someone like Rosaria, who is more like himself, or even someone like Jean (specifically, @gunnhildred’s Jean), who may not be like him in that regard*, but at least already knows about his baggage and accepts him anyway.

Anyway, the point is I think that while he might get along well with someone who’s very optimistic at first (thinking personalities like Navia or Yoimiya), and while he does very genuinely like them as people, his mind just doesn’t work the same way. And that’s not a change he can just make.** It may not even be something he can do at this point in his life.

tl;dr — Kaeya can definitely get crushes on people who are bright and sunny and optimistic but for someone like that, forming a deeper friendship / romantic relationship with him is a lot harder as so much of his personality and world view / mindset is substantiated by incredible trauma and pain, and he struggles to connect with people who - at least on the surface - don’t really seem to have that same problem.

* no one can convince him that Jean’s workaholic tendencies are not her own unhealthy coping mechanism

** in threads with @apocryphis, Rosaria has managed to help him stay sober (sometimes by force, which, honestly? He needs someone who won’t always be soft and gentle about it) and while most of that happens off-screen, that development has been going on for a while and it still pops up in threads now and then. It is a STRUGGLE for him, but it’s one he’s been supported in. And that’s only possible because he and Rosaria have built an incredible amount of trust and raw honesty with each other.

[mercyburned]

the only reason why kaeya would ever vote against noelle becoming a knight of favonius is because he is convinced she'd work herself to death, or at least try to, and his hands are already full enough with jean having that same mentality. he can't keep his eyes on the both of them at the same time.

[mercyburned]

thinking about Kaeya again this morning - how he’s not at all very physically affectionate (though with close friends he’s more comfortable initiating hugs) until he’s actually in a relationship with someone and then he’s always wanting some kind of touch, whether that’s holding hands or physical intimacy or even just leaning his shoulder against his partner’s while each of them works on something different. He’s so incredibly touch-starved but he’s not comfortable asking for touch either, but being in a relationship gives him an “excuse” to ask for touch without feeling like he’s asking for something unreasonable.

Also thinking about how despite the jokes he makes regarding being a cavalry captain without any horses, it’s great cover for the fact that he’s more or less Jean’s personal spymaster (though he doesn’t like that word) which has the practical and obvious extension of being Mondstadt’s spymaster. (I’m specifying Jean’s importance here because while I think he’d still do the thing even if she wasn’t Acting Grand Master, his motivation for it is largely because he trusts her to let him help Mondstadt in his own way… and it’s fairly true, considering how much he gets away with that he probably shouldn’t.)

I’m also never gonna stop thinking about how good he is with Klee, either. He really does love her like she’s his real little sister. I think at least some of his motivation to always be around for her comes from the fact that he was also a child whose sole parent left them in Mondstadt with someone else to take care of them and is now largely out of the picture. Obviously the circumstances are different, but he can’t help but make the connection anyway.